The United States is "immediately" restarting nuclear weapons testing, President Donald Trump has said.
“Due to the testing programs of other countries, I have directed the Department of War to begin testing our nuclear weapons on an equal footing,” Trump said in a post on the Truth Social platform on Wednesday. “This process will begin immediately.”
It is not clear whether Trump intends to test warheads or other parts of nuclear weapons, such as delivery systems, or which countries he is referring to when he claims they are testing their own weapons.
The United States, Russia, and China - the three countries with the largest nuclear arsenals - have not conducted full-scale nuclear tests since the 1990s. North Korea is the only known exception.
The last full nuclear test by the US was conducted in 1992, although various types of experiments continued over the following decades.
Trump's announcement came ahead of a long-awaited meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, but the topic of nuclear tests did not appear to be on the agenda of their first meeting under the new US administration.
Trump has for years expressed disdain for nuclear weapons and supported a policy of nonproliferation. Earlier this year, he said that Russia had agreed to indefinite nuclear limits and that China was willing to do the same. The nuclear arms limitation treaty between the United States and Russia, known as New START, expires in February.
However, Russia has continued to test weapons systems capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the country had tested the Poseidon torpedo, which can carry a nuclear warhead, just days after Russia said its Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile had flown about 8.700 miles during a 15-hour test flight.
Putin has previously said that Russia will conduct a nuclear test if another country does so first, and a senior Russian official has said that the US is already preparing for nuclear tests.
The Kremlin said on Thursday that the Burevestnik and Poseidon tests were not considered nuclear. “We hope that, regarding the Burevestnik and Poseidon tests, the information was correctly conveyed to President Trump,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said after Trump’s announcement.
"The US is already testing its nuclear weapons in a similar way," Hans Kristensen, a member of the nuclear expert team at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), said on Thursday.
The 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty bans all nuclear testing and explosions. The United States signed the treaty but has not ratified it, while Russia withdrew its ratification in 2023. However, both parties would also have to withdraw their signatures if they no longer intend to abide by the treaty's provisions.
Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the Duma's International Affairs Committee, said that "chaos" would ensue if the US resumed testing nuclear warheads.
Trump administration officials reportedly considered restarting nuclear tests during his previous term, after accusing Russia and China of conducting low-intensity nuclear tests - a charge both countries denied.
The US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) conducted an underground “chemical explosion” in Nevada last month to, according to the US government, “enhance the US ability to detect low-intensity nuclear explosions anywhere in the world.”
The Department of Energy, which oversees the US nuclear arsenal, is required to ensure that the country can conduct an underground nuclear test within 24 to 36 months of the president issuing the order.
William Alberk, former head of NATO's nuclear nonproliferation center and now a fellow at the non-governmental organization Pacific Forum, said the US could be ready to conduct some kind of test within six to ten months, but it would likely take about three years to prepare for a series of tests.
Alberk told Newsweek that more than one test could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. "There is very little scientific value in new tests, regardless of their size," he said, adding that Beijing would likely benefit the most.
Kristensen added that testing to develop a new nuclear warhead would take about five years.
China was the last of the major nuclear powers to halt full-scale nuclear testing. However, China's last test at the Lop Nur test site in 1996 involved a completely different arsenal than the one Beijing is assembling today, Alberk said.
The United States and the then-Soviet Union “tested absolutely every weapon imaginable,” Alberk added. Moscow has not conducted a single full-scale nuclear warhead test since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
How many nuclear weapons does the US have?
There are nine countries that possess nuclear weapons. Among NATO members, these include the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. In addition to them, nuclear powers include Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea.
According to expert estimates, there are around 12.241 nuclear weapons in the world, of which just over 9.600 are considered operational.
The US has a total of 5.177 nuclear warheads, including those awaiting dismantling and not officially counted in the active arsenal. The US government said in 2023 that the number of active warheads was 3.748.
Trump claimed on Wednesday that the US has more weapons than any other country, but Russia is believed to have more, totaling 5.459 warheads.
Together, Moscow and Washington control about 90 percent of the world's entire nuclear arsenal, including both strategic and non-strategic (tactical) weapons.
Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield - they have less destructive power and are used against different targets than strategic nuclear weapons.
Strategic nuclear weapons are deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and bomber-launched missiles.
While strategic nuclear warheads are limited by the New START Treaty, tactical nuclear weapons are not covered by any international treaty. The US has about 200 tactical nuclear bombs, about half of which are deployed at bases across Europe.
Like most nuclear powers, the US is in the process of modernizing its nuclear arsenal.
Russia and China in relation to the USA
Russia's total nuclear arsenal is estimated at about 300 warheads more than the US. According to US and independent expert estimates, Russia possesses between 1.000 and 2.000 non-strategic (tactical) nuclear warheads.
Trump said on Wednesday that China is a "distant third" in terms of the size of its arsenal, but that it will "reach that level in five years."
US nuclear experts said in March that Beijing had “significantly expanded its nuclear weapons modernization program” over the past five years, and that it possessed about 600 nuclear warheads that could be launched from land, sea or air. On Thursday, Kristensen estimated that China now had about 700 warheads.
Pentagon estimates last year showed that China is on track to have more than 1.000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030, although Western analysts point out that the size of China's arsenal will depend on the amount of plutonium, highly enriched uranium and tritium it can obtain.
“That will still be less than a third of what the United States and Russia possess,” Kristensen said.
Prepared by: NB
Bonus video:
